For one thing, if you see this 1959 album cover somewhere, like at thrift-store prices, you can’t NOT buy it, with the monochrome, crude pasteup of Virgil Gonsalves and an enormous baritone sax perched death-defyingly on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, facing a witch-like wind-blasted tree. He looks kind of like the guy who does your taxes or fixes your porch, but that horn is no joke. The bold red letters, JAZZ AT MONTEREY—irresistible. If I was starting a record company, I might steal the Omega Records label design outright—it’s one of the coolest I’ve seen. I’m not sure if this is considered “cool jazz” or what—someone correct me. I mean, it is cool, very cool, cool as a cadet blue DeVille—but I’m not sure if it’s/he’s the official member of any movement. In the first song (and all of them) you can imagine soundtracks—to stuff like a guy wearing sunglasses driving a convertible really fast, somebody standing on a corner, two scientists making love, captains of industry eating whole fish, dentists at war with each other, the city of tomorrow, a really good poetry reading—I don’t know. Mostly, what I am thinking about this record is that I like it.

On back, there’s really long and extensive liner notes by Johnny Adams, Jazz DJ at KIDD in Monterey—way too much to paraphrase here—I didn’t even read it all! I’ll get to it some day, because he’s going into great detail, and ends by saying: “SO… bend an ear and listen!” And this is a listening record for me, meaning I’m going to put it on again, just to listen to it, see? I also like how he says that Virgil Gonsalves “has not one direction, but many.” I feel like I can hear that in the music. I believe there is a six piece band playing on some songs and a band twice that size on other songs… but it all sounds simultaneously minimal and maximal, subtle and complex. Virgil Gonsalves, besides being the bandleader, also plays the baritone sax, which is a very cool instrument. The lineups here are pretty much piano, bass, drums, and then horns, and more horns—saxophones and trumpets. Horns, lots and lots of horns. And more horns. Did I say horns?

Blood, Sweat & Tears is one of those bands whose name is as familiar as my own, yet I know absolutely nothing about them. I picked up this record somewhere, perhaps with an idea I might remedy that situation, despite the gnarly cover with the band sitting on hard chairs in a dark room, holding on their laps, child size adult versions of themselves. It must have been a good day in 1967 at Columbia Records’ art department. It looks kind of like a nightmare you’d have after watching a good episode of “Wild, Wild West.” This band has a long history I’m not going into (or even read about) but this was their first record and Al Kooper was a major part of this venture, along with some other familiar names, and horns. Apparently they re-formed and re-formed over the years, and a version is still out there; the list of “past members” on Wikipedia looks like some kind of joke (I mean, maybe it is—there are far too many names for me to count—it’s insane), and one wonders if BS&T holds the record for most “past members.”

The music is good, I’m surprised at how much I like it. Maybe the truly frightening album cover is a difficult blow to recover from. Good playing throughout, and solid songs, most of them by Al Kooper, one by Steve Katz, and also songs by Tim Buckley, Harry Nillsonn, Randy Newman, Carole King and Gerry Goffin. My favorite, as of 10:21 this Friday night in August, is “So Much Love”—which I just listened to over three times, like I’m 12 years old or something.